New Products as seen in Precision Shooting (June 2012)

Jim & Jerry Bennington

INTRODUCTION

Tuners work on rim fire rifles. Do they work on center fire rifles and if so are
they repeatable and how much improvement do they provide?

Accuracy is about managing the barrel vibrations. Of course, this assumes that
there is an accurate scope and it is properly mounted. It also assumes that the shooter
mounts the rifle properly on the bench and does his job of reading the conditions and
firing the rifle. The greater the accuracy demanded, the more the skill required of the
shooter.

As you read the gun reviews in the gun magazines, the authors typically try
several factory loads and shoot five shot groups. They then list the best, worst and
average group sizes for each load. They do this because EVERY individual rifle has an
inherent dynamic response, primarily barrel vibrations, to the forces generated by given
load. Since the resulting groups are a function of the shooter, environment (wind,
mirage...) and the rifle dynamics, there is an unavoidable randomness to the group sizes.
The challenge to load development in reloading is finding the loading combination of
primer, powder, load, neck tension, seating depth, and so forth, that has the best average
group size AND smallest variation. Most of us have a cut out of a target with a great
group in our billfold. But one great group isn't enough; you need to ensure that the
performance is consistently repeated to have an accurate load.

In a similar manner, changing the rifle to improve its dynamics can improve the
accuracy. Free floating a barrel is one example that is widely used. Barrel tuners are
another tool that have the potential to make a good rifle even better. We will share our
experience with developing and testing tuners. They show that tuners on several center
fire rifles can consistently and with repeatability improve accuracy.

This project started with Larry Tolksdorf, Eric Bostrom and Jim Bennington
shooting at the Manatee Gun & Archery Club (MGAC) in Myakka City, Florida. The
Manatee Club has a 1,000-yard range and holds monthly gong matches at both 1,000
yards and 560 yards. Gunsmith Eric Bostrom has been building very accurate custom
Savage long-range rifles that have been dominating these long-range matches. The
authors have been interested in rifle tuning since before Browning introduced their BOSS
system in 1995. These interests resulted in the development and patent applications for
the Rifle Accuracy System, which is our combination tuner and muzzle brake. After
discussing the design needs for sometime, Larry T & Eric Bostrom built the first
prototype. The pictures below show the final product.

Initial applications of the Rifle Accuracy System showed significant
improvements in accuracy but were not conducted in a structured fashion to allow
consistent evaluation. This test program described here is intended to provide the initial
data to better understand the tuning system and its relationship to accuracy.

SAVAGE 260 AI TEST RIFLE

Rifle Accuracy System- RAS

Rifle Accuracy System & Precision BR Tuners

HISTORY

MUZZLE BRAKES

Muzzle brakes were probably first used on military canons and can
currently be seen on a wide variety of them. Magna-Port was one of the first to adapt
muzzle brakes to handguns and rifles. There are currently muzzle brakes in a wide variety
of designs available. While a muzzle brake can significantly reduce recoil it also
significantly increases the noise to the shooter and those near him. There is no free lunch;
recoil energy is exchanged for pressure (noise) energy. Muzzle brakes play an important
role in long-rang shooting. They aid the shooter in seeing the impacts of his shots. In
short range shooting, a scope can see the shots; this is not true at longer ranges like 1,000
yards.

TUNERS

Tuners are a more recent innovation. Browning introduced one of the early
commercial tuner systems with their BOSS system in 1995. Most competitive .22 RF
shooters use tuners to match their ammunition to their rifles. It is widely understood that
one cannot be competitive in .22 RF matches without a tuner. Short-range bench rest
shooters have recently used tuners to improve their accuracy. Now, with the popularity of
long-range competition and varmint shooting, tuners are increasingly being used.

THEORY

There are two independent types of barrel vibrations:

The pressure inside the barrel causing it to expand and contract in a
harmonically defined fashion (much like the string on a violin vibrates when it is
plucked) as it moves along the barrel causes the first type of vibration. When the
bullet leaves the muzzle when it is at its smallest diameter, accuracy is improved. When
the muzzle has expanded and is larger than the minimum, it acts like a bad crown with
the bullet smaller than the bore. Formulas to calculate Optimum Barrel Time are
provided in the appendix. This vibration mode depends on only barrel length. With the
use of the Quick Load and Pressure Trace products barrel times can be estimated.

The second and most significant type of vibration type is the bending mode of
the barrel. Think of clamping a steel ruler to a bench and then bending and releasing the
free end. The ruler will vibrate based on its characteristics and the force applied to start
the vibrations. A gun barrel functions in the same, but much more complicated way.
In the case of our ruler one can write a differential equation of motion to describe
the motion, velocity and acceleration of any point on the ruler. To do this for the rifle
barrel is far more complicated.

Let’s consider the series of events from the time the trigger is pulled until the
bullet leaves the muzzle. Each of the following events happens at a small, millisecond
time lag after the previous event.

The trigger is pulled to release the sear

The sear releases the firing pin

The firing pin moves forward, striking the primer

The primer and cartridge are driven forward

The primer ignites causing it to move rearwards, striking the bolt face

The powder begins to burn and causes the bullet to move forward

The bullet strikes the rifling and begins to spin

The action and barrel moves rearward in recoil until the recoil lug is stopped by the stock

The entire rifle recoils

The list could go on, but the reader should get the point. Each of the events can be
described with a differential equation of motion, each spaced slightly different in time.
All of the differential equations need to be simultaneously solved to get a picture of the
barrel vibration. Solving the equations is not important, but knowing they exist is. What
the shooter sees is the sum of all these. You might ask why this is important. We will try
to answer that question shortly.

The barrel will vibrate with a number of modes or harmonics. Simply put, each
successive mode (harmonic) will cross the centerline (the nodal point) of the barrel one
more time than the previous mode (harmonic) and be at a higher frequency. For example
if the second mode (harmonic) were 445 cps the third mode might be 1,246 cps. As the
harmonics increase, the final crossing point gets closer to the muzzle. A good example of
this can be found on Varmint Al’s web site www.varmintal.com. His barrel tuner
analysis will demonstrate this effect.

Jim Boatwright wrote an excellent article in Precision Shooting a few years ago
describing how this barrel vibration causes aiming errors. The closer the nodal point is to
the muzzle when the bullet exits, the less the error. The problem is that the nodal point is
a function of the barrel length. Shortening or lengthening the barrel still leaves the nodal
point some distance before the muzzle. When we add a muzzle brake the barrel
thinks it is longer, and the nodal point moves closer to the muzzle. That is why most
rifles shoot better with a muzzle brake or suppressor. If the muzzle brake is too long, the
nodal point can move forward of the muzzle and accuracy will decrease.

As described earlier the Rifle Accuracy System adds a movable weight to the
muzzle brake. Slight 5-degree (.00045") changes of the location of the tuning weight can
make significant changes on group size. Why is that? Think about all the various
influences on the vibrations listed above. The slight movements of the tuner weight
location can change all of them, either increasing or diminishing the magnitude of the
muzzle motion. The concept is much like noise canceling headphones, which create a
vibration just the opposite as the one to be eliminated. It is much easier to test this than it
is to calculate it.

TEST GOAL

The testing has three goals:

Show that tuner settings change the average group size

Show that tuner results are consistent across shooting sessions

Illustrate a procedure for determine a “near optimal” tuner setting

Illustrate the effects of the uncontrollable variations within the two shot groups used in the tuning procedure

If one were trying to measure improvements in a rifle shooting 1 ½" groups and the tuner
reduced the group to ¾" that would seem to be a big improvement. In this case the skill
of the shooter has a lesser impact on the results. In the case of accurate rifles that shoot
under ½" the skill of the shooter becomes a much bigger factor in evaluating changes to
the system. In the real world, if the shooter’s skill was the only variable, there would be
some minimum group size that the shooter could consistently maintain. Consider the
very best of the bench rest competitors their averages can be in the low 0.200’s or high
0.100’s. Typically, in competition, five sets of five shot groups are averaged to
determine accuracy.

The goal for this test was to provide data as to the degree of accuracy
improvements to be expected with the Rifle Accuracy System and the repeatability of
these measurements. The sensitivity to tuner adjustment as it related to accuracy was
explored. The use of the tuner system and other tuners were used to examine a range of
applications.

The barrel will wear a little with every shot changing the test results with time. It
was decided to try to minimize that problem with this test. Tests were conduct with two
(2) shot groups. “If two shots don’t group, three shots will not improve it.”
Unfortunately, a great two shot group DOESN’T mean that the resulting three or five
shot group will be small. Hence, multiple groups must be shot to determine the average
group size and variation for a given tuner setting. By shooting multiple two shot groups
at each tuner location and averaging the results, we could determine the relationship
between tuner location and accuracy. To further verify this additional three or more shot
groups could then be fired.

TEST CONDITIONS

The tests reported in this article were conducted on a private range in northeast
Michigan. The range lies north to south and is surrounded by pine trees. During the
duration of this test the conditions were calm winds and temperatures from the mid 70’s
to high 80’s. Velocities were measured with a CED chronograph located 20 feet from the
muzzle. Test were conducted at 100 yards and verified at 285 yards (maximum for the
range). It should be noted that all the rifles used in these test were very accurate custom
rifles.

The Rifle Accuracy Systems was initially set two turns, 720 degrees, back from its maximum forward position.

Initial groups were shot using 40-degree rotation (.0035") between groups for one full 360-degree rotation.

The group sizes ranged from the largest (.421") at 80 degrees to the smallest (.073") at 0 degrees and (.062") at 240 degrees.

Experience has shown that with each revolution of the tuner similar results will occur.

Graph #1 gives us a starting location to meet our test goals.

The next step was to fire a series of groups from 200 to 280 degrees in 10-degree (.0009") increments. There were 13 tests, 42 groups or 84 shots fired to define the tuners performance with the Savage rifle. The result of all these groups is shown in Table #1 below. As can be seen, it is hard to get a specific answer to our goals from the data as shown. It can be seen that the all the groups tried to show a harmonic oscillation shape.

To better define the data, the average, maximum and minimum group sizes were
determined for each tuner setting. Graph #2 shows this average results and the range of
the data. Graph #2 also shows that the smallest average groups were achieved at tuner
settings at 230 degrees. The minimum variation in groups was also achieved at the 230
setting.

Now to address our test goals:

Show that tuner settings change the average group size.
The data clearly shows that group sizes change with tuner settings.

Show that tuner results are consistent across shooting sessions.
By averaging the test data it can be seen that there is consistency at the tuner
settings within the bounds of the range of results.

Illustrate a procedure for determine a "near optimal" tuner setting
As described at the beginning of this article, a 360 degree rough test will
provide a starting point for the best setting. Then tests in smaller increments
about the small group as a starting point will provide near optimal accuracy.
Additional test, may improve the results. Shooting multiple 2 shot groups is
essential because we are trying to find a tuning point that is partially obscured
by the variation in group sizes due to other factors, principally wind, mirage,
and shooter error. The more 2 shots groups shot at a given tuner setting the
greater the statistical confidence in the results.

Illustrate the effects of the uncontrollable variations within the two shot
groups used in the tuning procedure
The maximum, minimum data shown in table 1 & graph 2 give an indication
of the variations and how they relate to tuner settings.

285 YARDS

Since one of the goals of this project was to improve long-range accuracy groups were
tested at the maximum distance of the range, 285-yards. The following target shows that
the tuner setting needed to be adjusted by 10 degrees, from 260 degrees to 250 degrees,
for best accuracy. What is interesting is the groups shot with two different powders at the
same best tuner setting, 250 degrees. The RL 19 group was 0.0751 MOA and the Hunter
group was 0.1305 MOA. Since all the 100 yard data was with the Hunter powder,
because it was faster, one might wonder how much better the 100 yards groups might
have been if the RL 19 powder had been used.

The next question.

How does Rifle Accuracy System tuning change with a different rifle?

A very accurate bench rest rifle was chosen. This rifle was originally a 6PPC Bench Rest
rifle made by Dwight Scott. The rifle has a HALL action. The barrel was changed for
this test to a Broughton 6.5 mm, 28", 8:1 twist barrel chambered for a 260 AI with the
same reamer used on the Savage barrel. The rifle has a Jewel trigger, T36 Weaver
Scope and the Rifle Accuracy System. The Hall's only common feature with the Savage
is the 260 AI cartridges. The Hall action has been glued into the Adamowicz stock.
The load was MRP powder, 139gr moly coated Lapua bullets, 210M primers, Remington
brass. What was surprising is that the best tuner locations were within 0.0009" of the best
locations on the Savage.

What happens to a rifle that doesn't need a muzzle brake and just uses a tuner?

Without the tuner this load typically shoots 5 shot groups under 0.400”. The addition of
the tuner substantially reduced these groups.

The 22 RF bench rest shooters have long used tuners to match their rifles to their
ammunition. What happens if we put a tuner on a Ruger 10/22? A SuperTune tuner
was modified to adapt it to the barrel of the 10/22.

CUSTOM RUGER 10/22-22 RF - Wolf 22 LR Ammunition

Ruger 10/22 with tuner

CONCLUSIONS

Tuners work on center fire rifles and the results are repeatable.

Tuners and the RAS specifically, will make substantial improvements in rifle
accuracy.